Arkansas parole office admits open records lapses

Sheila Sharp, the new head of the Department of Community Correction, also said the old regime's policies "handcuffed" parole officials who were trying to respond to Freedom of Information requests from the public and lawmakers.

Comment

By Associated Press

Stuttgart Daily Leader - Stuttgart, AR

By Associated Press

Posted Sep. 20, 2013 at 9:19 AM

By Associated Press

Posted Sep. 20, 2013 at 9:19 AM

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.

Top parole administrators said Thursday that the past leadership of Arkansas' parole and probation agency failed to properly and consistently share information with the public.

Sheila Sharp, the new head of the Department of Community Correction, also said the old regime's policies "handcuffed" parole officials who were trying to respond to Freedom of Information requests from the public and lawmakers.

Sharp took over as head of the department after former director David Eberhard retired July 1.

Sharp and the agency's deputy director of communications, Dina Tyler, appeared before the Joint Performance Review Committee at the Capitol on Thursday.

Discussion at that meeting turned from a newly proposed public-information policy to the release of emails in the case of Darrell Dennis, an eight-time parole absconder arrested and charged in a May 10 kidnapping and murder in Little Rock, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported (http://bit.ly/1fgPkVk ).

Dennis' case has prompted several ongoing legislative reviews, a review by the governor's office and an administrative investigation by the Arkansas State Police into parole policies and practices.

Citing a story in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that showed a June 4 request by the newspaper received a handful of emails — while a similar request from legislators weeks later yielded at least 36 emails that were not handed over to the paper — Sen. David Sanders said it appeared that the parole agency broke state law.

"The previous director (Eberhard) clearly had a problem with following the state's Freedom of Information requests," said Sanders, R-Little Rock.

Sharp said the agency's proposed public-information policy would improve the flow of information. Sharp and Tyler are borrowing that policy from the state's prison system and modifying it for the Department of Community Correction.

"In my point of view, with both statutes in mind, if you did release one bundle of information and you found there was another bundle of that information, I believe you should have followed up that as well. You release all of it or none of it," Tyler said, according to the newspaper. "We have to walk a very narrow line between the right to know and security. ... That's what we want to do here."

Tyler said the custodian of the Department of Community Correction's records had given a few emails to the media, only to hand many more over to legislators later without going back to the media.